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Essay Sample on Man
Alexander Pope in his quintessential work "Essay on Man” begins with the lines ‘Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of Mankind is Man’. It shows that man learned about nature and God’s creation through science, yet when he gets power, he forgets the blessings of supreme power. It’s his ignorance that he forgets ‘He’ when wields power and feels contended in materialistic way and remembers ‘Him’ in misery. Miners who survived when buried in a Chilean mine were praying throughout in distress as revealed when they were rescued. We pray in the hospitals when someone dear to us keeps lurching between life and death.
Man is philosophical when in distress and ignorant to ultimate truth when enjoying the bliss of the physical world. In his prayers he requests for forgiveness chanting ‘Err is human, forgiveness is divine’. To vindicate man’s follies sometimes political leaders also come in support to chant that human beings commit follies in excitement and hence should be pardoned.
In the words of a famous saint ‘Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev’, man has to learn control over his emotions and rationality as he grows older. If he doesn’t control his emotions then he falls prey to his sins and will repent his misdeeds till the end of life. This control can be learned through meditation and spiritual conduct and mindfulness.
"If you go on practicing meditation for days, and months, and years, until it has become a habit, until it will come in spite of yourself, anger and hatred will be controlled and checked.” said the Indian sage Swami Vivekananda.
Meditation doesn’t mean sitting quietly in a corner and praying. Doing anything that helps relieve your mental, physical, and emotional stress can be termed meditation. It may include exercises like swimming, cycling, reading a storybook, watching a movie that has comedy in it, or even walking silently in a park.
Man has always been intrigued by the power of nature, and perhaps that is the reason he has tried to control it by using various methods. But nature has always outsmarted man. He must understand that he is an integral part of nature. Nature is a provider. Mediation, spirituality, and mindfulness towards nature heal man and improves his relationship with nature.
Subsequently, living in synchronization with nature eases the quality of our life and helps the environment. The well-being of the future generation is also taken care of if a man takes care of nature and respects her.
In the name of progress and development, man has harmed nature. Modern man talks of a battle with nature, forgetting that, if he won the battle, he would find himself on the losing side. Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished. The pleasures of life are hidden in the simplicity of nature … a waterfall, a brook, a silent tree whose silence is broken with the chittering of the baby birds in the deepest part of the tree, watching raindrops falling from the eaves, snowflakes falling gently and softly, snow-capped mountain peaks, orange-yellow hue at the time of sunrise and sunset, golden sand on the beach have all the happiness man wants for himself.
Therefore, man must understand that in order to maintain a good balance between nature and himself, he must start enjoying nature’s ways and let her have her way.
